Florida board approves school grading changes

The State Board of Education made some concessions to local school officials, parents and other critics Tuesday before approving rule changes making it tougher for Florida schools to get top grades.

The Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The State Board of Education made some concessions to local school officials, parents and other critics Tuesday before approving rule changes making it tougher for Florida schools to get top grades.

Opponents said Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson's original proposal for revising Florida's A-to-F school grading system was unfair, and would have resulted in unnecessary failures while leading to more public schools being taken over by for-profit charter school companies.

Robinson agreed to drop a plan for giving an automatic "F'' to a school if less than a fourth of its students read at grade level regardless of how well they do on other subjects.

Instead, such a school would drop one letter grade. The board also agreed to delay that change until next year.

The panel voted to include all disabled students and English learners, except those who have been in the United States for less than a year, in the grading system. That will satisfy requirements of a federal waiver to the No Child Left Behind Act, but the board also agreed to create a task force, including teachers, parents and school administrators, to hammer out the details.

The waiver will permit Florida to substitute the modified state school grading plan for the federal version known as Adequate Yearly Progress. That will avoid confusion now caused by having two often conflicting grading systems.

The final rule changes largely satisfied local school superintendents.

"Look, I think from where we were just a week ago to where we got today, taking on some of the pernicious elements of the recommended rules, I think we made a great deal of improvement," said Miami-Dade County Superintendent Alberto Carvalho.

A Department of Education simulation indicated Robinson's original proposal would have increased the number of "F'' schools from 38 last year to 268. No simulation has yet been on the final version.

Carvalho said the grading system is still a work in progress, but the task force "will go a long way in terms of allaying some of the concerns of the stake-holders."

It will attempt to come up with suggestions the state can offer in negotiations with federal education officials over their requirement that disabled students and English learners be assessed the same way as other students.

Critics cited research showing it can take anywhere from two to five years for English learners to have enough command of their new language to compete on an equal footing with other students on standardized exams such as the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or FCAT.

Jose Fernandez, Florida state director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, objected to the provision because he said it would penalize schools for low performing English learners. He said schools should, instead, get bonus points for English learners who do well.

"As it ended up, I didn't like it," Fernandez said. "I'm leaving with kind of a 50-50 thought on the whole thing."

Board member Roberto "Bobby" Martinez, a Miami lawyer, had similar misgivings. Martinez urged the board to delay action while seeking accommodations from the U.S. Department of Education. Robinson, though, said the board had to vote Tuesday to comply with the waiver requirements.

Several teachers and parents said there's wide variation among disabled students, many of whom take an alternate test rather than the FCAT.

She said her 13-year-old daughter is an A student and just fine, but her 15-year-old son is talking about dropping out and seeking a GED because he's never been able to pass the FCAT reading test, which is a graduation requirement, while her brain-damaged 14-year-old daughter has the academic ability of a first grader.

Celeste Bowker, who teaches children with disabilities in St. Johns County, said her students have great manners and are terrific at recycling, but they don't get any credit for that in the grading scheme. Many have trouble with reading and test taking. She said one student always picks the cute puppy if it's the answer and another selects the answer closest to his right hand.

The alternate test has a question about gravity, Bowker said, yet, "They don't know the days of the week, some of them."

Patricia Levesque, executive director of former Gov. Jeb Bush's Foundation for Florida's Future, predicted federal officials will not budge on their insistence that disabled students and English learners be fully included in the grading system.

Levesque argued that's the only way to ensure schools will provide services needed by disabled students including her 3-year-old son, Luke.

"They are not going to let this state board, the state of Florida treat Luke differently and make him count only half a student with non-disability," she said.